Control values, to regulate the amount of particulate or liquid flowing into various containers, including flexible bags, i.e., paper/plastic and rigid vessels, at given rates have been available for use with filling tubes and the like to fill the containers. Control valves have inherently had problems relative to their size and tolerance relative to product delivery tubes. Further, current control valves comprise a collar with a cylindrical extension, to receive hinged lids, but such construction does not allow or provide a sealed chamber to prevent the escape of particulate or liquid. This has been unhappily accepted in the food industry for some time, and has become more unacceptable with the use of less fats in the flowing particulate stream, leading to more leakage of product during the filling operation and the creation of a dusty environment.
The present invention provides several features which heretofore have not been available for the filling operation of material into containers, including a machined spherical surface with cut-off top and bottom portions and machined opposing arcuate lids, having a spheroidal/spherical shape with interior concave surfaces, whereby during the filling operation, relatively tight tolerances between the moving lids and the spherical surface provides a moving seal at all times, and when the two lids meet, intermittently, generally at high rates, the leading surfaces of the lids provide a sealed chamber to ensure an accurate, metered amount at higher speeds. The above features become extremely desirable, especially when, for example, the food industry expects and/or demands higher/faster fill rates without damaging or compromising the integrity of the product and with less loss of product. Fill rates typically reach speeds of about eighty (80) containers or packages per minute.